


beware; for i am fearless

by Dialux



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: ...to the extent i write dark!fic, Dark Jon Snow, Dark Sansa, F/F, Female Jon Snow, Rule 63, in which jon is jonelle and canon is altered
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-22
Updated: 2017-04-22
Packaged: 2018-10-22 15:09:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10699554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dialux/pseuds/Dialux
Summary: Jonelle’s a bastard, right?So she’ll be at the back of the tent when Robert asks Sansa what happened with Joffrey and Arya and Nymeria. She’ll hear Sansa’s soft, quiet whisper- I didn’t see- and Arya’s scream, she’ll hear Cersei’s sentence, her father’s answer. And Jonelle’s as righteous and angry as Jon ever is, and so she doesn’t hesitate to turn around and leave, to use Robb’s parting gift to her- a sharp-edged Valyrian steel imitation dagger- to smash open Ghost’s and Lady’s chains and chase them away.[In which Jon Snow is Jonelle Snow, and goes south with her sisters.]





	beware; for i am fearless

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt on tumblr: "Out of curiosity, how would you handle a writing a fic where Jon is a girl and still having Jonsa happen? Would fem!Jon go to King's Landing with Sansa, Ned, and Arya? Or stay back at Winterfell with Bran, Robb, Rickon, and Catelyn??"
> 
> The actual post- being more meta than this fic- can be found at http://dialux.tumblr.com/post/159864361271/out-of-curiosity-how-would-you-handle-a-writing-a .

Jonelle’s a bastard, right?

So she’ll be at the back of the tent when Robert asks Sansa what happened with Joffrey and Arya and Nymeria. She’ll hear Sansa’s soft, quiet whisper- _I didn’t see-_ and Arya’s scream, she’ll hear Cersei’s sentence, her father’s answer. And Jonelle’s as righteous and angry as Jon ever is, and so she doesn’t hesitate to turn around and leave, to use Robb’s parting gift to her- a sharp-edged Valyrian steel imitation dagger- to smash open Ghost’s and Lady’s chains and chase them away.

Nobody ever knows how the direwolves escaped.

Months later, when Sansa’s crying in her rooms from the humiliation and shame and pain, Jonelle presses rough, damp wool to her wounds and leans down, catches her chin, whispers, _they’re alive, I swear to you, they’re alive and well and sometimes I dream of a wolf running through the woods and I know that we’ll meet them soon._

But before that, she learns how to shrink.

Jonelle’s never known it, never had to learn it.

But she learns how to twist her shoulders, duck her head, fade into the stone walls and tapestries. She teaches herself, because there’s something terrible inside the city walls and she doesn’t know _what_ but she knows it’s something. 

This proud daughter, this fierce daughter- she’s spent years tussling with Robb when his ego becomes too large, years fighting and learning and _becoming,_ and here, now, she has to become something less. But Jonelle’s a survivor, so she learns it: before she has to, before she even knows it. 

(It does her a lot of good when they kill her father. They come for everyone else, the septas and the guards and even little Arya, but Jonelle’s hair is in the same braids as the rest of the maids and her eyes are just as downcast, and nobody, not even Cersei Lannister, realizes who she is.)

(It doesn’t save her father. It doesn’t save Sansa, either, and Jonelle fists her hands in her skirts when she sees the blood staining her sister’s skirts, dripping down her back- fists her hands and bites her tongue and lets the hatred swamp her because she _can’t_ help.)

(She’s never really hated herself more.)

When the Tyrells offer Willas and the Reach to Sansa, she looks so lost- she wants to go, that’s true enough, but she’s also so afraid, and she doesn’t want to leave Jonelle behind.

 _You’ll go,_ Jonelle tells her, hands seizing around Sansa’s bird-thin wrists. _You’ll go, and you’ll live, Sansa, and you’ll have sons to name Eddard and Brandon and Rickon. You’ll offer them everything._

It doesn’t happen, of course; Sansa marries Tyrion, and she doesn’t weep when she goes into their bedchamber but Jonelle still stays outside, hair covering her face, feet aching, heart bursting in her chest from all the pain Sansa must be feeling- 

Tyrion leaves the room, and Jonelle steps forwards, fluid, out of the shadows like an avenging wraith, and presses a knife to his neck. 

(She doesn’t have to bend much. She’s a small woman, Jonelle, but she’s her mother’s daughter before that: flash, and fire, and rage like the roar of an avalanche.)

 _If you ever hurt her again,_ she tells him, knowing the shadows don’t let Tyrion see her face, _I will gut you like a fish._

She leaves, then, and when she speaks to Sansa next- they’re careful, always, to make Jonelle seem like a normal maid, not anyone special at all- Jonelle sags in relief to find out that Tyrion has at least taken her threat seriously.

At Joffrey’s wedding, Jonelle sees Joffrey choke, sees Cersei scream- then she’s turning, searching for Sansa, and she sees it: a flash of red, a glint of purple. She doesn’t hesitate to follow, nor to knock the man out with a well-placed elbow the way that Robb taught her. They grip each other’s hands, then, and don’t even pause, don’t even question it- they flee.

It’s on the road that Jonelle starts to fall in love.

(Not really- that’s been happening for years. When Sansa’s only tears under Joffrey’s knights’ mailed fists were of blood, when Sansa laid gentle hands on Joffrey’s arms to twist a horrific sentence to something less unkind, when Sansa refused to break to a world determined to tear her apart- well. Jonelle’s been falling in love for years. It’s only on the road that she _realizes_ it.)

(She refuses to tell anyone. But Sansa’s beautiful, like a sunrise turned to life, like the glare of fire across a forging blade. Every day, it becomes more and more difficult.)

They find berries in places; Jonelle sneaks into a shanty once and steals a knife, and she spends hours trying to sharpen it into something properly useful. They set traps; they scavenge foods; they avoid other people. 

Sansa’s hair lightens in the sunlight, turning even brighter, until it’s almost difficult to look at. Both of them tan, turn lean- hunger gnaws at the edges of their bellies every day, and most nights. It’s still a better life than under Joffrey’s thumb.

A month later- maybe, time seems to pass differently in the woods- Jonelle wakes to a scream. She rolls, unsheathes the knife, and comes up standing all before she opens her eyes.

She opens her eyes, and comes face to face with a pink, slobbering tongue.

The white fur and red eyes sink in a heartbeat later, and Jonelle gasps in shock, dropping the knife, before throwing herself at Ghost. Sansa’s not two feet away, sobbing into Lady’s fur, and- Jonelle can’t help it, she starts to laugh.

 _What?_ Sansa asks, and Jonelle waves at Lady’s neck. 

 _Ribbons,_ she says. They’re torn, ragged, worn. But the silk still clings to Lady’s fur. _Your ribbons, Sansa, they’re still there._

It doesn’t take them too long after that to meet Nymeria, nor a wolf-pack large enough to feel like an army. After that- it takes even less time for them to march north, to take the Twins. Jonelle enters, twists her lips, slumps her shoulders, watches beneath lowered lashes as the Freys ignore her, and when all of them are sleeping, she lets the wolves in. 

She kills Walder Frey herself, with a stolen farmer’s knife. His blood is still on her hands when Sansa steps forward and kisses her.

Jonelle’s brain shorts out- it’s lightning, flaring through her veins, terribly wrong and terribly _right,_ like the blood yet staining her palms. She kisses back, then, one hand sliding up to cup Sansa’s head, bloodied hands on bloodied hair, their kiss made up of teeth and tongue and heat.

(Neither of them know anything different.)

(Neither of them _want_ anything different.)

It takes them time- precious time- but they march further north, and at the Neck they meet with Howland Reed who tells Jonelle the truth of her parentage. Sansa kisses Jonelle that night, harder than ever before, and when she slips a hand over her breast it sparks a heat in Jonelle’s stomach that makes her quake.

 _Please,_ she says, breathes, _please, Sansa-_

They fumble, fingers skipping over furs and cloth, sighing into each other’s mouths, necks- one memorable time, thighs- and dawn comes far too early for either of them. But dawn does come, and they do rise, and when they ride out for Winterfell, they do it together, hands entwined.

When they take Winterfell, Jonelle kills Roose Bolton and the other lords who betrayed Robb herself, a sword heavy in her palms. Sansa insists on letting Theon go, though, when she hears that Bran and Rickon are still alive, and Jonelle doesn’t gainsay her.

That first week, they find Robb’s armor.

Jonelle shakes when she sees it, goes white and trembling as a leaf. Sansa guides her out of the room, her hands flattened on Jonelle’s neck, and drags her into an embrace.

 _I know,_ she whispers, muffled, into Jonelle’s neck. _I know, Jon, I know it hurts._

 _He’s gone,_ Jonelle says, chokes. _Robb. He’ll never come back._

 _No,_ Sansa murmurs, lifting Jonelle’s chin, eyes warm and soft and kind as a still forest pool. _But we’re here, and so long as we live, we’ll never forget him._

Sansa melts the armor down. She gifts it to Jonelle, months later, when Jonelle goes to ride a dragon to burn an army of the dead down. They both cry, when she wears it for the first time, but then Jonelle licks the tears away and, soon enough, that turns into kisses, strokes, caresses- until they’re quivering like lambs. 

Years later, Sansa sits the cold throne in Winterfell. Arya comes and goes, a shadow to even Jonelle, the person who knows her best. Bran is beyond the structure that was once the Wall, becoming whatever he wishes to be; Rickon’s refused to accept the throne, content to rest with the Mormonts, and so Sansa and Jonelle remain in Winterfell, alone and together as they’ve been from almost the very beginning.

 _You won’t ever leave me,_ Sansa says, once, the tip of her lip curling upwards, warm and edged as a hearthfire, as the sword-sharp crown in her hair.

Jonelle stands beside her, always, close enough for Sansa to place a hand over her arm, in a maidservant’s gown when she needs to look unimportant and in Robb’s armor when she needs to look invincible.

 _Never,_ says Jonelle, cries Jonelle, swears Jonelle. _Not for a hundred lifetimes._

This is the only oath Jonelle Snow ever swears.

It’s one that she keeps.


End file.
